She has always insisted on a sequel to her first book—at least as far back as I can recall.

Though, technically, I started typing the initial draft of Exile the weekend after my first submission deadline for Academy 7.

Vroom! We were off—Robert, Aurelia, and I, thundering through their expedition.

Of course, there were certain things Aurelia didn’t inform me of in that first draft.

The forest, for example. Silly me, I thought the Asyan Forest was the setting for a single chapter. Little did I know it was going to snatch us up and refuse to let us leave. I spent an entire Christmas in the forest. The beginning of the following summer, we were still there.

And then I had to take a detour into the draft for a different book.

Ooh! Aurelia was mad! “You’re leaving us stuck here!” She yelled at me. “How can you leave us here?!”